Female Police Officer Jailed for Nearly Four Years After Being Caught Kissing Jailed Criminal She Had an Affair With

A female police officer, Choni Kenny, 27, was caught on camera kissing a prisoner while wearing her police uniform.

The incident occurred at Forest Bank Prison in Salford, where the prisoner, Josh Whelan, was held between 2021 and 2023. The CCTV footage, showing Kenny holding Whelan’s face and kissing him in the waiting room, led to her being sentenced to nearly four years in prison this week.

Alan Richardson, of the Crown Prosecution Service, stated that Choni Kenny was “trusted to uphold the law and protect the public” when she joined Greater Manchester Police in 2020.

‘Yet her conduct fell far below this when she became involved with two known criminals’, he said.

After initiating a relationship with Josh Whelan while he was incarcerated, Choni Kenny continued to maintain contact by supplying him with mobile phones.

She personally bought and delivered the phones to him. Whelan, who was 28, was later found with 20 phones in prison, all of which had been supplied by Kenny. She was aware that Whelan was involved in drug dealing during their relationship.

‘You were helping him to supervise that operation from prison’, Judge Neil Flewitt KC said.

In addition to supplying phones, Choni Kenny also passed on sensitive police information to Josh Whelan, including a victim impact statement when he was accused of violence against a former partner.

Their relationship continued even after Whelan’s release from prison. The pair were seen together in Kenny’s BMW and at a Nando’s restaurant in November 2022.

Afterward, Kenny went to work and searched for the details of prisoners who had been released that week. This further violated her duties as a police officer, as she misused her position to gather information for Whelan.

‘He is a convicted criminal’, Alexander Beevers, defending Whelan, sa

‘His co-defendant liked that aspect of his character, it is something which appealed to her and unfortunately she, in addition and unusually, had the status of being a police officer.

‘She was willing to make use of that status.’

Kenny continued the pattern with Mottley, a former schoolmate, whom she began a “physical but casual” relationship with after her involvement with Whelan ended. Mottley was in Spain at the time, under investigation by the same police force Kenny worked for.

During this time, Kenny used police systems to access information about the ongoing investigation into Mottley, even sharing details with him. She went so far as to warn Mottley about a planned police firearms raid and promised to help him by finding out who the “local grasses” (informants) were.

This led her to attend a course on handling police informants, which she ultimately misused to benefit Mottley.

Mottley was eventually extradited from Spain to the UK in October 2024, three months after his arrest by the National Crime Agency.

Claiming the men ‘took advantage’ and ‘exploited’ Kenny’s willingness to share sensitive information, the judge said: ‘Your actions were not motivated by a desire for a financial or other advantage or borne out of any malice.

‘They were a consequence of your naivety, immaturity, and wish to maintain the friendship of Josh Whelan and Rahim Mottley.’

Speaking after sentencing, Detective Chief Superintendent Mike Allen said the disgraced officer’s actions ‘plainly amounted to serious corruption’.

‘It is right that she now contemplates her future from behind the bars of the prison estate where she is now incarcerated’, he said.

‘Kenny’s jail term is fully deserved – she does not represent the thousands of professional, honest, hard-working police officers across Greater Manchester who continue to protect the public every day.’

Kenny, from Tennyson Road in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, pleaded guilty to four counts of misconduct in a public office and one count of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.

She was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. Prior to her conviction, Kenny had been dismissed from the police force after an accelerated misconduct hearing on April 1.